School zone

August 29, 2006 at 12:09 am (Uncategorized)

TEN THINGS I HATED ABOUT SCHOOL

1. Waking up early. This will always be number one on my list of things I hate. If you’re a naturally late sleeper, few things compare to the hellish sound of an alarm clock reminding you that you have to get out of bed to go some place you detest. Entire childhoods are spent obeying that demonic alarm clock so you can go to school and obey a legion of demonic adults.

2. Fuggin cold. For the most part, I walked to school. But whether your hiking through the snow or waiting for a bus, it’s all part of the same purgatory. You’re subjected to extreme weather in order to get to a place you’d rather not get to.

3. Back to school shopping. You had to study in the middle of vacation to get up to speed with the year’s fashion. Who the hell every decided chamois shirts and those massive, metal belt buckles with the sliding fasteners were cool, anyway?

4. Book covers. I know most of you out there were probably Bob Villa’s of the paper bag book cover. Good for you, Bob. Where the hell were you when I was going through six bottles of glue and 40 bags just to get one half of one book covered. If asked today, I could not cover a book with brown paper if it meant the firing squad.

5. Cafeteria food. I don’t care if you bring a cold lunch or not. You still have to smell cafeteria food. And if you’ve ever been in a jail or prison, you will have noted that the smell there is the same as it was at your elementary school. I’m guessing this is no conicidents.

6. Indoor recess. Oh, sure. You’re going to succesfully cop a feel from that sexy, brainy chick from the third row during indoor recess. There is nothing quite like the smell of 30 or so wet kids trapped inside a classroom that already reeks of chalk dust and construction paper.

7. Gigantic classroom clocks that stretch spacetime. Seriously, those bastards seemed to run backwards some days. Einstein clearly should have created a third theory of relativity to explain the excrutiating pace of classroom time.

8. Valentine’s Day. Remember how you always made a super huge card for the first girl to develop breasts? But gave one of those cheesy, store bought junks to Valerie, the chick who smelled like mustard and who always answered the teacher’s questions and made you look like a tard? But then, when it was go time, you found that the breasts girl gave you one of the store bought junk cards, and so you understood that pain and started to realize how horribly you’d treated mustard reeking Valerie? Hated that.

9. Fitness tests. These things were always interrupting perfectly good gym class activities like dodge ball, floor hockey and kickball. Quick, boy! Climb that rope so we can prove to other countries how physically fit we Americans are? I wanted to smash that guy in the face with one of those red rubber balls.

10. Cursive. Why do we need it? My cursive still sucks, because Becky, the first girl to develop breasts, was always stretching when we were learning how to write it. If anyone has seen my signature, you will note that the two M’s at the end of my name appear as breasts. You can thank Becky for that.

TEN THINGS THAT WEREN’T SO BAD

A. Girls. There was simply no better place to be than school if you were a young man with blossoming curiosities.

B. Putting your head down on your desk as punishment. Golly, what a mean thing to do to a kid. I used to love putting my head down. I’d alternate between sneaking glances at Becky and dozing.

C. Four square. Great game. You could totally favor the girl you had a crush on and smash the ball into the square of guys you didn’t like.

D. Fire drills. Ah, sweet glimpse at freedom. Kind of a tease, though.

E. Hot teachers. I think I had maybe two in my whole school career. Still, the early construction of fantasies made that year very special.

F. Halloween. Strangely, I enjoyed Halloween around the Night of all Nights of the Year. Perhaps it’s because schools are inherently creepy.

G. Spelling Bees. For one reeson or anuther, I was a great spellur. And oddly enuf, this inpressed the gurlz.

H. Bike racks. Man, was anything cooler than riding your bike to school and then locking it up with one of those cheesy chain locks that would open up in a stiff breeze?

I. Snow days. Man! A reason to wish for snow. I haven’t experienced that since.

J. The last day of school. There is absolutely no joy that can equal that of the day of liberation, and just as the weather is turning nice. Cleaning out the desks, turning in books, putting chairs upside down on desks for the last time. Remember that final bell in early June that marked your freedom? It was a precursor to the euphoria you later sought in sex and substance abuse. Sweet. Very sweet.